


Where They Need to Be (or Where They are Needed)

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Children of Earth Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: Night and the Doctor e04 Last Night, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn





	Where They Need to Be (or Where They are Needed)

Jack looked up from his writing desk at the familiar whooshing noise.

He had never expected to hear it again, but he wasn’t startled; it was the sort of thing the Doctor would do, showing up out of the blue with no warning.

 _I wonder what he looks like now,_ Jack thought, _and whether he’s anger or pain, blue-eyed or brown so dark it’s black. Or something else._

Jack watched as the TARDIS materialised in his sitting room, blocking his view of the heavy curtains and the chaise he kept by the window.

But the doors did not open, and nobody came out.

 _Uh-oh,_ Jack thought, trying to remember the last time that had happened.  He got up, raised his hand to knock, and the door swung open.

Her interior was different, Jack noted, more… streamlined. Futuristic, and were those Gallifreyan symbols spinning slowly above the rotor? He heard a rustling noise below him and looked down, through the transparent floor.

Oh. The Doctor wasn’t hurt then, assuming this _was_ the Doctor, in shirtsleeves and braces and a bow tie, swinging gently in what appeared to be a repair sling. Jack smiled to himself; that sling would have come in handy in the old days, when he had travelled with them, when she had allowed him to tinker with her. He headed down the stairs to one side of the console, and the man he assumed was the Doctor looked up as Jack reached the bottom.

God, he looked _young_. So young, about the same age as Ianto had been when… Jack stopped, and swallowed hard. “Doctor?” He could hear that his voice was hoarse and hesitant, and the young man regarded him for a moment and gave him a come-ahead gesture.

“Jack.” This regeneration’s voice was deeper, and as Jack approached, he could see that the eyes were hazel, and deep-set, and almost browless. And _ancient_ , belying the youthful face, which suddenly didn’t look so youthful after all, so pale and with fine lines around the eyes. “What do you need from me?”

 _What_? “Nothing,” Jack said simply. “You came to me.”

“But she takes me where I am needed,” the Doctor said, in a blank tone, and the rotor whooshed over his head. He glanced up and slowly climbed out of the repair sling. This Doctor seemed… if the ninth had been angry, and the tenth sad, this one seemed... broken, as though something had finally been too much for him to bear.

Jack shivered. After the Time War, and the Year that Never Was and the Medusa Cascade, after all he’d been through, even those terrible things Jack himself hadn’t seen but had heard about, like Mars… what could have possibly have broken the Doctor _now_? But he followed the Time Lord up the stairs to the console, and watched as the young-old man fussed around the screens and levers and dials. “Doc?” The old nickname slipped out as the Doctor slumped into a jump seat and shoved a hand through his hair.

“Or where I need to be…” the Doctor said, almost under his breath, and then he looked up at Jack and waved him into a nearby seat. Jack sat. “Why, after all this time, would I need _you_?”

“Ouch,” Jack said lightly, trying to mask by tone of voice how much that had _hurt_. But this version of the Doctor evidently understood human nature better than the last one had, because he dropped his face into his hands and muttered something. An apology, and Jack felt his jaw drop. An actual apology? For hurting someone’s feelings? This Doctor _was_ different.

Or even more broken than Jack had thought, and the lump in his throat grew. He cleared it and leaned forward to put one hand gently on the Doctor’s shoulder. “Accepted.” The doctor flinched, but then he looked up and, god, his eyes again, they made those of his previous selves look positively _merry_ by comparison. “Why does she think I need you, Doc? Or you need me?” Jack kept his voice soft, unthreatening, but the Doctor looked away.

“I don’t know.” The Doctor’s voice was nearly inaudible, and Jack thought he was probably lying, but now was not the time to push him with accusations.

So… “Well,” Jack said reasonably, “what were you doing before you came here?” And then he watched in shock as the somewhat aloof expression on the Doctor’s face just _crumpled_ into a mask of misery and pain. The Time Lord didn’t move, didn’t bury his face into his hands again; he just sat there looking at Jack, and when a single tear trickled down his face, Jack couldn’t help himself.

“C’mere,” he said softly, and pulled the Doctor into a hug. And Jack was shocked again as the Doctor wept into his neck. He held the Doctor, rocked him gently and made little hushing noises into the mop of brown hair, and eventually the silent sobs shuddered to a stop and the Doctor sat up, pulling away.

The Doctor mumbled something that might have been embarrassed thanks or even explanation. Closing his eyes, Jack sighed and sat back into the jump seat, only to open them again as he felt the hesitant touch on the top of his head. “I know why she brought me here,” the Doctor said, offering the statement like a gift. “Because you’re the only one who’s lived long enough to unders--”

“To understand what it’s like to outlive them all,” Jack finished for him. “On Earth anyway.” _Maybe_ , he thought, _because there’s that kid watching the Pandorica, and the lizard woman right here in Victorian London_. He might not be an active Torchwood agent anymore, but he’d lived through this time before, and he remembered. But the Doctor had come to him for help, or the TARDIS had anyway, and he intended to help as best he could. It’s not like he was much good for anything else these days.

“Can you tell me?” Jack heard the words come from his own mouth.

“You know how it goes, Jack.” The Doctor’s tone was bitter. “You love someone but you know you’ll lose them, so you don’t tell them. Story of my life, but River, she was…” His voice faded, then came back stronger. “She was even more of a foregone conclusion than most. My timey wimey wife…” He trailed off again, but Jack hardly noticed for the tears in his own eyes. “Oh, _Jack_. I’m sorry,” the Doctor sighed, and it was his go to hold Jack while the other man cried.

“I miss them.” It was all Jack could say for the next half hour.

“I know.” The Doctor stroked Jack’s hair. “I tried to help, I…”

Jack sat up. “Alonso, you mean.” At the Doctor’s short, embarrassed nod, he smiled. “Thank you. Alonso was… just what I needed after the 4-5-6. Sweet and _forgiving_ and…”

“Like Rose,” the Doctor breathed, and Jack nodded.

The Time Rotor whooshed and Jack sighed again. “Time to go, I guess. You’ll be all right?”

Jack watched the Doctor struggle with the words. He suspected that the Time Lord was trying very hard to be honest.“Eventually. You?”

“Yeah. Eventually.” _I think it’s time to go off world again. Maybe do some research on that library planet  before it gets closed down._

Neither man suggested that Jack travel with the Doctor.

Both men had been where they needed to be.

And where they were needed.


End file.
